SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 4: Poster

SOE 4.7: Poster

Montag, 27. März 2023, 17:00–19:00, P2/OG2

How random are team sports leagues? — Maciej Pawlik¹, Michał Boruta², Robert Paluch¹, and •Janusz Hołyst¹ — ¹Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, 00-662, Poland — ²Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, 00-662, Poland

To answer the title question, the historical ranking tables of four team sports leagues (Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Svenska Hockeyligan) are analyzed. We investigate the predictability level of a given league by calculating the average absolute rank change ρ between two subsequent seasons of every team. The data are applied to calibrate an agent-based model of team sports leagues where every team possesses a certain strength equal to the sum of strengths of all players that have been selected to the team from a draft list. The sign of the difference between the strengths of two teams indicates the favorite of a given game, and there is a determinism parameter β ∈ (0, ∞) that controls the game predictability. We use the model to simulate many seasons of various leagues and to compute the average absolute rank change ρ of a given team between two consecutive seasons. Plotting ρ as a function of β reveals a continuous transition between phases of luck– and skill–based sports. Comparing the results of our model with the ranking tables of selected professional leagues, we show that they operate close to the transition line but in the deterministic phase. This finding suggests that random factors and abilities of team players are of comparable importance, with an advantage of the latter.